The mare from nowhere: Asian Mazes feats have earned her comparison with Dawn Run. Now Cheltenham beckons, where she will try to emulate the legendary mare. By Denis Walsh

After Asian Maze won her seventh race of the season, pulverising a Grade One field at the Punchestown Festival in April, Tony McCoy paused by the RTE studio to have a passing word with Ted Walsh. McCoy had ridden Washington Lad, the third horse home and the last horse to have beaten Asian Maze three months earlier. Officially the turnaround in the form had been 10 lengths but the figure was a feeble declaration of the six-year-old mare’s superiority, committed to the form book as a white lie. In fact she killed him. She killed them all. Off air, McCoy said to Walsh that the winner was a freak. It was meant in the nicest possible way.

In another part of the parade ring the mare’s trainer, Tom Mullins, was giving his reaction to the assembled press. He reflected on her performances at the big spring meetings and suggested a